Gone Fishing
by Bellerophone
Summary: Set before the events of the manga: Ran and Shinichi go fishing and run into some strange people...


Sixteen-year-old high school detective Kudou Shinichi sat in a tiny rowboat in the middle of a mountain lake, a fishing pole in his hand and a scowl on his face.

"Why are we here, Ran?"

The brown-haired girl beside him frowned, tugging dejectedly at her own fishing pole. "I was just trying to do something special. This was your first free weekend from cases in weeks, Shinichi."

"Well why'd you pick fishing?" Shinichi groused. "There are so many things I'd rather be doing with you than fishing…"

Ran flushed. "Shinichi…"

"Sherlock Holmes never went fishing," Shinichi continued obliviously.

"Oh…"

"Sir Arthur Conan Doyle doesn't mention Holmes' feelings toward fishing," Shinichi said, slouching onto the side of the boat. "But I'm sure he didn't like it."

"How can you be sure?" Ran snapped. "Maybe dear old Holmes-_sama_ went fishing every Sunday."

"Holmes lived in London, _ahou_, he couldn't have. And he wouldn't waste time fishing because fishing is boring. _Boring_, Ran. It requires no intellectual output whatsoever. Holmes—"

"Well what _does_ Holmes like to do?" Ran cried, throwing her arms up in the air and certainly frightening away any fish that might have been contemplating her bait.

"Oh, lots of things!" Shinichi perked up, unconsciously leaning closer to Ran in his eagerness. "He studied Judo, and he liked to fence, for one thing."

"Ohh!" Ran said, mock-surprised. "I've used swords before in karate! Why don't we try some fencing when we get ashore, would you like that, Shinichi?"

"N-no!" Shinichi sat back down. "That's all right, Ran—"

"No, really, it's no trouble—"

"Fishing's cool too, Ran—"

"I'll fence with you, Shinichi, don't be shy—"

"Ran, you're rocking the boat—"

"_OI_!" came the voice of a teenage boy from across the lake.

Both teens looked up halfway through the process of Ran swinging her fishing rod like a katana from where she sat on Shinichi's knees—he'd fallen right off the bench in the boat and lay flat on his back, hands raised above him.

Ran dropped her pole, her cheeks bright scarlet. "What—"

"We're tryin' ta fish over here!" shouted the boy. "Even if fishin's the _stupidest_ thing in the world—"

"_Ahou_! Our dads didn't have ta take us on the Osaka Police Camping Trip!" cried an equally accented female voice, and finally Shinichi and Ran saw the rowboat from which the noise was coming; about two hundred meters to the west side of the lake, a dark-skinned sixteen-year-old was standing up in his own rowboat with his hands cupped around his mouth, the better to holler insults across to a now fiercely embarrassed Shinichi and Ran.

"D'you think I care?" the boy howled, this time addressing himself to a brown-haired girl sitting beside him in the boat.

"You're an idiot!" retorted the girl.

Shinichi peered out over the water. "Who is—"

"So much for fishing," Ran murmured from behind him, still slightly pink. "Mystery geek…"

"THIEF GEEK!"

Shinichi and Ran whipped around in the opposite direction of the still-squabbling Osakan couple. On the opposite far shore of the lake a petite brunette appeared to be trying to haul a gangly, taller boy into a boat, but from what Shinichi could see the boy was putting up a terrific fight.

For her tiny size, the girl's voice was extraordinarily carrying. "Shut up about Francois Villon and Ishikawa Goemon and Arsene Lupin and _Kaitou_ _Kid_ for just one moment!" she shrieked, "and GET IN THE BOAT!"

The boy wailed something incoherent and made one last desperate bid for dry land.

"We went skiing _last_ weekend," the girl retorted. "And I looked like a fool. Now I want to go fishing!"

The boy flinched exaggeratedly and his companion seized on the chance to give him one last yank. He fell flat on his face into the boat, arms and legs askew, and before he could escape the girl leapt in after him and pushed off.

Shinichi began to snicker sardonically to himself as he watched the black-haired boy right himself with an indignant "_AHOU_! LET ME OFF!" during which his voice cracked spectacularly no less than six times.

"Don't tip the boat, stupid, or you'll fall into where the fishes are!" the girl chided loudly, causing the boy to immediately become meek. "Now shut up and hold onto the live bait for me, will you?"

"_Live bait?_" squeaked the boy.

"Poor guy," Shinichi smirked.

"THAT GOES FOR YOU IDIOTS TOO! _SHUT_ _UP_!"

The Osakan boy from the opposite bank was howling across the water again, much to the chagrin of his female friend. "STOP YOUR WHININ'!"

"YOU SHUT UP ABOUT HIM!" the petite girl shouted back from the opposite shore. "MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS!"  
"I'M JUST TRYIN' TA FISH!"

Shinichi slumped in the prow of their boat. "Why bother?" he said carryingly, looking bored. "Fishing's _stupid_."

Ran flushed deeper, but before she could respond the petite girl was shouting, "You shut up over there!" over the renewed complaints of her companion, the gangly, moaning boy, who was on his feet at the far end of their boat, as if trying to put as much distance as possible between himself and the petite girl, who already had a fishing rod out and a bucket at her feet.

"Fishing's BORING!" Shinichi yelled over his shoulder.

"FISHING'S STUPID!" the Osakan boy hollered.

"F-F-F—AHHHHH!" the gangly black-haired boy overbalanced in his boat and toppled face-first into the water.

At the northern—and markedly quieter—end of the lake, a portly mustached man and his blonde sixteen-year-old son hiked down the path to the water's edge, fishing poles in hand and a canoe over their shoulders. When they reached the shore and set down their canoe, the portly man raised a hand to his eyes and squinted out over the water. "What in the world is all that racket?"

His son glanced out at the three most noticeable boats on the far end of the lake. The boat on his left had a man overboard who was thrashing frantically as he struggled to get back in, while the boat's occupant, a tiny brown-haired girl, pretended not to notice him; a loud and heated argument was taking place in the boat on the right, and at that moment the slighter of the two figures shoved the taller, darker one right into the water as well; and in the middle boat a girl was swinging her fishing pole like a katana at a person who was either child-sized or crouched under the prow of the boat.

"…I have no idea…" Hakuba Saguru said slowly, raising an eyebrow.

His father chuckled. "Well, no reason to let it spoil our day! They've probably chased all the fish right to our poles."

Saguru smirked and stepped into the boat. "Ah…I do love fishing."


End file.
